Why Is It Nobody Will Let You Speak Your Mind? (A Glorious Rant)

So tonight, I set a new world’s record for the fastest expulsion in any writer group on the face of this planet: Twenty minutes.

And it wasn’t over anything stupid. I just was dumb enough to challenge the status quo of the mainstream again–because…apparently, I’m not the only writer around here who has a thin skin.

So tonight’s little gem centered on selling your book for the miserable price of 99 cents (why authors do this, I’ll never know. I can never seem to get a straight answer out of people. Just the usual hypothetical clap trap about rankings and such that helps alleviate one’s self to a higher level of snobbery. (And if this post doesn’t get me banned from Word Press, I don’t know what will) and I posted a little comment about people’s obsession with rankings and such–asking why people focus solely on that instead of writing the damned book? (My exact words.)

So the same person felt it was her solemn duty to inform me that she thought what I posted was highly offensive and judgmental.

And it got me thinking: “How is it judgmental if it’s the truth?”

This coming from a writer’s group. One that professed to be open, supportive, and caring.

Yeah…fuck that!

If you’re so supportive and caring, why don’t any of you dodo heads ever let people like me speak my mind?

Why must you keep me caged and penned in and not allowed free reign? What are you people so fucking afraid of? You think the world is going to explode the second someone challenges your precious status quo? You think your precious ranking on Amazon is going to fall five spots because someone made you think outside the friggin’ box for a change?

WHAT IS THE FUCKING POINT TO HAVING A WRITER’S SUPPORT GROUP IF NO ONE LETS YOU SPEAK YOUR GODDAMNED MIND???

My god! You’re talking about (and dealing with) a no-name author who will never ever make any money off his self-published books in the future! Someone who feels fucking alienated and neglected by the online community because very few people will take a precious second to talk to him, rather than snub him at ever turn.

The least you idiots can do is be tolerant and open-minded about opinions and statements backed up by both fact and reality.

Fact is, people are obsessed with Amazon rankings. Especially writers. They do whatever they can to stay on top–even if it means neglecting the very people they are trying to cozy up to. By shunning other people who would otherwise question the world around them, they are in effect divorcing themselves from the very world they are trying so hard to make a living in.

Just like the Republican Party and the Tea Party trying so hard to divorce themselves from fact and reality, these same writers and authors are just following the same mold which has pretty much put them out of touch with what matters the most: Which is writing a fucking novel!

If you’re so fucking worried about money and everything, maybe you people should’ve chosen a better career profession than one that is universally steeped in poverty and hopelessness.

Nobody I know has ever ever gotten rich selling their books for a goddamned dollar or less. Or given them away for free. No one.

I have seen too many authors labor endlessly over the futility of the whole exercise–snookered into the belief that if they give away their books for free or sell them for mere pennies on the dollar, that instant fame and fortune will follow.

Doesn’t happen that way.

The sad truth is, many of these same authors end up right back where they started–because they don’t understand how the system works. How it is rigged against them every step of the way.

But to go out of your way to silence and ban people for having a difference in opinion is beyond amoral. It gets harder and harder for me to find a writer’s support group that will go out of their way to support me and remind me why I write alone.

Why I am alienated from the online community.

Most of the groups I belong to on Facebook are pretty much dead and taken over by spammers who just constantly spam their book links over and over. There’s no real point in trying to connect with people who don’t want to spend time connecting with you online.

It’s the same wherever else I go. Either on Twitter, Yahoo!, Figment, Watt Pad, and yes…even here on Word Press.

People by and large just don’t have the time to connect with anyone. No matter what content you put on the internet. You could be posting the most wonderful chocolate cake recipe ever and 98% of visitors to your site will just ignore you for the sake of ignorance.

Like my Facebook page, I only reach about 15% of my target audience. On a good day, I’ll get maybe ten people to just talk to me. Other days…? Less than five. Sometimes two. But it’s never changed much for me. Why? Because of all the restrictions Facebook has instituted on its site.

It’s no longer user friendly anymore. As is the case with most of the social networking sites I’ve been on over the past fifteen years. It’s called control and conquer.

It’s a simple set up where a select few come in and take over everything and set the rules, so that by the time you come in, you’re pretty much fucked beyond words.

You can’t speak your mind without setting somebody off.

As tonight has demonstrated all too well, writers aren’t immune to that. But it’s funny that they are also the same ones who are supposedly more tolerant than most people. Unfortunately for me, it’s just another avenue that I’m no longer welcome in.

See, I’m not popular. So as far as numbers go, I’m going to have the least amount of visitors on anything I post. And dollars to doughnuts, most everyone reading this post will just simply either ignore it, call me all sorts of names (which are fun by the way), or just pass me by into the night–as usual.

Because I don’t rate very high on people’s lists these days. Even if I had a book out tomorrow, nothing would change.

I’d still be in the business of pissing people off.

I don’t look at the world in the same way as everyone else. So my mode of thinking is going to be drastically different than the guy who is a total and obedient sheep to the mainstream and will gladly swallow the latest line of bullshit in order to be widely accepted by his or her peers.

Black sheep like me don’t get very far. Odds are, we’ll be completely (and totally) eviscerated by the world around us–bitch-slapped like there’s no minata. Why? Because people with differences of opinion aren’t looked upon favorably in large groups.

Like lemmings, we’re all either going to go over the cliff together or not at all. But the world is not set up efficiently for people of differentiating opinions to function as a completely different collective. See, in this world, everyone follows a preset directive.

Someone in Tulsa farts, then everyone else within a ten-square mile radius will be pulling apart their butt cheeks and doing the same damned thing and really stinking up the place.

But if someone doesn’t? Upper management gets pissed and decides to drag out a can of heavy-duty Whoop Ass and the whole group feels the sting of punishment; thus…blaming the little guy (namely me) for not going along and stirring up a shit storm in our wake.

It’s the same with writer groups: Everyone’s on the same page and if someone isn’t? Well, that guy is morally fucked. There’s no help coming his way. Not for all the bottles of Bayer-Aspirin in the world at any rate.

Such a mentality would usually leave me in a quandary of sorts. But under current circumstances, I can’t say that I’m surprised by the level of hostility still being exhibited by the writing world.

This is how things are. And as far as fools go, I just can’t believe that I’m still dumb enough to try and change people’s minds, or modes of thinking–especially by those types who refuse to think outside the box.

But it’s okay. My opinions and such (as they are) aren’t wanted in this world of ours–given all my past experiences. I’m supposed to be the loyal soldier for the cause and not question authority one iota.

Heh.

As much as I would love to entertain that silly notion, it’s not going to happen. My whole life–up to this point–was made to question things. Question people. Question the world.

And I’m not going to stop doing that–no matter how much it annoys you.

So feel free to live in your own little protective bubble of dis-reality fellow writers. But beware of the guy coming around the corner with a large industrial-sized pin.

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I mean Why Is It Nobody Will Let You Speak Your Mind? (A Glorious Rant) |
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